Introduction
Green Dragon Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in the United Kingdom, set in the heart of Hereford City. With history stretching back hundreds of years, the hotel takes its role as custodian of this landmark seriously, delivering an experience worthy of its heritage every single day.
Today the hotel operates with a team of around 65 people across multiple departments, working different shifts around the clock. Keeping that team connected, informed, and delivering for guests at every hour of the day is the central operational challenge Samantha Mason, Hotel Manager, navigates every day.
The Challenge: Using Personal Messaging Apps Makes Running a Hotel Harder
Before Zenzap, Green Dragon Hotel was managing its team communication through a mix of paper, diaries, and personal messaging apps. In a fast-moving operation running 24 hours a day, this didn’t work well enough.
- No Separation Between Work and Personal Life: With team communication running through personal messaging apps, staff had no way to switch off when they weren’t at work. Work messages set next to personal ones, with no separation.
- No Control Over Communication or Data: Anyone could be added to any group. Staff had to share personal phone numbers. There was no oversight, no structure, and no way to manage who had access to what.
- Messages Getting Lost and Missed: With people working across different shifts and departments, important information was regularly missed. Printed memos went unread. People came back from holiday not knowing what had changed. There was no way to reach everyone at once.
“Historically you have people who don’t know things. You’ve been on holiday, you’ve missed a memo, you’ve printed it off and nobody’s read it. So there’s always difficulties in trying to make sure that messages are received by everybody so that everyone’s working off the same page.”
The Solution: Why Zenzap?
Green Dragon Hotel needed a professional team communication app that could separate work communication from personal life, give the HR team full control over who was in which groups, protect staff data, and keep a large, shift-based team connected and informed across all departments.
Zenzap delivered all of that and more. The rollout was fast and adoption was immediate.
“We made the decision to switch to Zenzap for two reasons. One, that it allows the team to have a better work-life balance and to switch off when they’re not here. And secondly, from a GDPR point of view, it means that the team don’t have to give out their phone numbers.”
Key Features in Action
Work-Life Separation for Every Team Member
With Zenzap, work communication is completely separate from personal messaging. Staff know when a notification is work-related and when it is not, which means they can be fully present at work and fully switched off at home. For a team working shifts around the clock, that boundary makes a real difference.
“When you use something like Zenzap, you have that ability to separate the two. The ability to be able to say, right now I’m at work, or right now I’m not, and I’m going to not look at that message until later on is fabulous.”
Scheduled Messages for a 24-Hour Operation
Hotel managers and night shift teams can compose messages at any hour and schedule them to be sent at the right time, without waking people up or disrupting the team outside of working hours. For a hotel running around the clock, this feature alone changed how leadership communicates.
“For me to be able to create my messages at any time of day, but to set them to send at a normal time, or even for my nights team to be able to set them when they’re beginning their shift is a massive feature.”
Organized Group Chats Across All Departments
Every department has its own group chat in Zenzap, with mixed department chats and full team chats sitting alongside them. The right people are in the right groups, communication stays organized, and nothing gets lost in a stream of unrelated messages.
“Every department has their own group chat. We also then have full team chats and mixed department chats. So the ability to have lots of different groups and the right people to be in those groups is really great for us as a business.”
Tasks That Never Get Lost
When a message requires action, it goes straight into a to-do in the chat in Zenzap. Heads of department use this to manage their daily workflow, and nothing gets buried in a stream of messages or forgotten by the end of the shift.
“You receive a message, you know that you need to come back to it, you just move it over into your to-do list and then it just can’t get missed in the whole stream of messages that happen through the day.”
Streamlined Onboarding and Offboarding
New team members are added to their onboarding group as part of their induction, with everything they need already waiting for them inside Zenzap. When someone leaves, access is removed instantly. No more paper folders, no more manual processes, and no personal data left on anyone’s personal device.
“When somebody joins the team, they get added into that onboarding group that’s got everything that they need for their department and that is just game-changing for us.”
The Impact: A Hotel Team That Stays Connected, Protected, and Focused on Guests
Switching to Zenzap transformed how Green Dragon Hotel communicates across its entire operation, from the front desk to housekeeping to maintenance and beyond.
- Staff have a clear separation between work and personal communication, giving them the ability to switch off and show up fully when they are on shift.
- Guest requests and operational updates move between departments instantly, with nothing getting missed and nothing falling through the cracks.
- The HR team has full control over who is in which groups, staff data is protected, and onboarding and offboarding happen without any manual paperwork.
- Leadership can communicate with the whole team at once, across all shifts and departments, without anyone being left out of the loop.
“Since we implemented Zenzap, our communication is much faster. Things that need to be done are done much more quickly in a timely manner that means that our guests are being looked after as quickly as they need to be.”
Conclusion
Running a hotel means keeping a large, dispersed team aligned across all shifts, departments, and guest interactions, all at once. Green Dragon Hotel found the work chat app that makes that possible. With Zenzap, the whole team stays connected, staff can switch off when they are not at work, and nothing gets in the way of delivering the experience the Green Dragon has been known for across centuries.
“Zenzap has been an absolute game-changer.”
Introduction
Three Horseshoes Country Inn and Spa is a family-run hospitality venue in Staffordshire, originally bought by the parents of co-owners Steven Kirk and Mark Kirk back in 1981. Since then, the business has grown from a small six-room country inn into a full hospitality venue with 26 bedrooms, a wedding venue, a pub and dining area, and a spa.
For the last 20+ years, Steven and Mark have run the business together, building a team across multiple departments that needs to communicate clearly and consistently throughout every shift.
The Challenge: Personal Messaging Apps Blurring the Line Between Work and Home
Before Zenzap, Three Horseshoes was using WhatsApp to communicate across departments, after years of having no dedicated communication tool at all. As the business grew, the cracks in that approach became harder to ignore.
- No Separation Between Work and Personal Life: Staff used WhatsApp for both personal chats and work communication. There was no way to keep the two apart, which made it difficult for employees to switch off from work once they went home.
- Onboarding and Offboarding Took Too Much Manual Work: Every time a new employee joined, they had to be added individually to several different groups across different platforms. The process was repetitive and time-consuming.
- No Easy Way to Remove Access When Staff Left: When an employee left the business, there was no simple way to remove them from every group at once. Managing access across multiple platforms was inefficient and easy to get wrong.
“One of the biggest challenges with using WhatsApp is that it wasn’t private because you’d use WhatsApp for your own personal chats. And I’m always a believer in keeping work separate from personal life.”
The Solution: Why Zenzap?
Three Horseshoes needed a professional work communication tool that would give staff a clear boundary between work and personal life, while making it simple to onboard new employees and remove access the moment someone left.
Zenzap gave the team exactly that, with a system built around how a hospitality business actually operates.
Key Features in Action
Notifications That Respect Personal Time
With Zenzap, employees can set their notifications to work hours only. When they finish their shift and go home, notifications turn off automatically, so they are no longer alerted to work issues outside of working hours.
“Zenzap allows all my employees to set the notifications for when they’re only working. So when they go home at the end of the night, the notifications will automatically be turned off and they won’t get notified of any issues that’s going on at work.”
Instant Onboarding and Offboarding
Adding a new employee to Zenzap and their relevant groups takes a fraction of the time it used to take across multiple platforms. When someone leaves, deactivating their account removes them from every chat at once, with no manual cleanup required.
“When a new employee starts, we’ll add that employee to Zenzap, we’ll then add them to their specific groups, and then more importantly, when an employee leaves, we just simply deactivate that one employee from Zenzap and that will remove that person from all the chats.”
The Impact: A Hospitality Team With Real Boundaries and Less Admin
Switching to Zenzap gave Three Horseshoes a way to support its staff and run its operations more efficiently at the same time.
- Employees have clear separation between work and personal life, with notifications that respect their time off.
- Onboarding new staff takes a fraction of the time it used to, with employees added to the right group chats instantly.
- Offboarding is instant and complete, removing access to every chat in one click instead of doing it manually.
- Staff communication is more private and more professional, kept entirely separate from personal messaging apps.
“I would describe Zenzap as a tool that keeps your employees happy by keeping their private lives separate from their work lives.”
Conclusion
Hospitality is a demanding industry, and giving staff the ability to truly switch off matters. With Zenzap, Three Horseshoes Country Inn and Spa gives its team a clear line between work and home, while making onboarding and offboarding simpler than ever before.
“Hospitality is a very stressful industry and Zenzap allows your employees to keep their work life separate from their personal life.”
Introduction
Indigo Pubs and Bars is an LGBT owned and managed hospitality business based in Leicester, operating three venues that work closely together. Founded by James Cockerill over 23 years ago, the business has built a reputation as a welcoming, inclusive space where everyone feels at home, staff and customers alike.
With three venues, a largely part-time workforce, and staff regularly moving between locations, keeping the whole team connected and communicating clearly is one of the biggest operational challenges the business faces every day.
The Challenge: Personal Messaging Apps Letting a Multi-Venue Operation Down
Before Zenzap, Indigo Pubs and Bars had tried various group messaging apps to keep staff connected across its three venues. None of them worked the way a professional hospitality business needs them to.
- No Clear Separation Between Work and Personal Life: With communication running through personal messaging apps, staff felt like they had to be available and responding around the clock. For a largely part-time workforce, that was a real problem.
- Communication Scattered Across Multiple Groups: With staff moving between three venues, managing communication across multiple personal group chats was messy and inefficient. Nothing was centralized and nothing felt professional.
- Apps That Didn’t Meet the Needs: Every communication tool the team tried did not quite fit the needs of a fast-moving, multi-venue hospitality operation. The business needed something built for professional team communication, not personal messaging.
“Trying to communicate through personal text messages just isn’t effective. Then you have multiple teams, you know, they feel like they have to answer 24 hours a day.”
The Solution: Why Zenzap?
Indigo Pubs and Bars needed a professional work chat app that gave staff a clear boundary between work and personal life, worked across multiple locations and teams, and reflected the professional standard the business holds itself to.
What stood out about Zenzap was that it was built with hospitality businesses in mind, understanding the specific challenges of managing a part-time, multi-venue workforce.
Key Features in Action
Work-Life Separation
With Zenzap, staff can choose when they engage with work communication.
They can choose when to get notifications, so that when they’re off the clock, they can really disconnect.
They log into the app on their own terms, read messages when they are ready, and keep work entirely separate from their personal lives. For part-time staff working just two or three days a week, that boundary is especially important.
“The great thing about the Zenzap app is that staff members can choose to actually log into the app, choose to read those messages, and it’s separate from their personal lives, which just means that gives better downtime to staff.”
One Professional Work Chat Across Multiple Venues
With Zenzap, all communication across Indigo’s three venues lives in one place. Staff moving between venues stay connected without having to manage multiple group chats. Everyone knows where to go and what to expect.
“Having the Zenzap app just made it more clear and more straightforward, and people knew where they stood when it came to responding to messages.”
The Impact: A Hospitality Team That Communicates With Clarity and Professionalism
Switching to Zenzap gave Indigo Pubs and Bars one professional work chat that works across all three venues and respects the time of every team member.
- Staff across all three venues communicate in one organized place, with no more scattered group chats or mixed messages.
- Staff have a clear boundary between work and personal life, with the freedom to engage with work communication on their own terms.
- The business communicates in a way that reflects the professional standard it holds itself to every day.
Conclusion
Running three hospitality venues with a largely part-time workforce takes communication that is clear, professional, and respectful of everyone’s time.
Zenzap gave Indigo Pubs and Bars one work chat that keeps the whole team connected, gives staff the boundaries they need, and highlights that the business takes work communication seriously.
“Zenzap is the ideal partner when it comes to communicating to staff in a professional way.”